“We had a wonderful two weeks. The staff are exemplary and a real credit to you and Richmond. I pray that the season will continue to go well.”
Doug Croucher, August 2011, Samos

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Pastor Profiles M-Z

M
Phil & Sandra Marsden
Bob & Stella Matthews
Alistair McKitterick
Michael & Jenny McMurtary
Eric & Carolyn Moore
Nathan Morgan Locke
Tom Murray

NOP
Andy & Fiona Perry
Tom Price

QR
Matt Rich
Doug & Fiona Russell

S
Des Scott
Anand & Helen Selvajaran
Ben & Karen Shaw
Mark Simmons
Alex & Trish Slater
Mike Stringer
Gordon & Marion Stroud
Trevor & Jan Summerlin

TUV
Will & Lucinda Van der Hart
Simon Virgo

W
Nic & Denise Willis

XYZ

Phil & Sandra Marsden

Phil is the Minister at Brixham Baptist Church in Devon. Prior to this, he was involved in a variety of ministries including extensive youth and children’s work.

He began his ministry at 20 on ACE Teams - a youth initiative run by the Assemblies of God Church, where he met his wife Sandra. From here he became Director of a Youth for Christ Centre in Manchester. His next role was as Children & Youth Director for the Baptist Missionary Society where he led the Action Teams and travelled extensively including Asia and Europe.

In 1996 Phil decided he wanted to be more church based and moved to Queens Park Baptist Church in Glasgow as their Youth Worker. He was there for 5 years before moving to Tonbridge Baptist Church as Youth and Children’s Minister where he completed his theology degree at Spurgeon’s and became an accredited Minister.

Phil and Sandra then moved to Brixham in 2006 and over the past four years have seen the church grow numerically and spiritually. They have initiated a youth club – now with almost 200 members.

Sandra who has two part time jobs, leads a ladies home-group and overseas the Sunday school as well as assisting Phil in his ministry. They have two daughters, Amy and Bethany.

The family enjoy days out in beautiful Devon and Cornwall, spending time on the beach, playing pitch & putt, sailing, body-boarding and surfing.

Bob & Stella Matthews

Born and brought up in rural West Cumberland (in the shadow of Ennerdale), I grew up with walking mountains as an instinct. I was fortunate to be able to work initially at a College in Whitehaven before making a career switch to work for the Lake District National Park. As Operations Manager based beside Windermere, I had an unrivalled view from my office window across the head of the Lake to the Central Fells. I was embroiled in the field of interpretive education. I even became an aficionado of Beatrix Potter, whose cousin built the house that was my base. I was granted voluntary redundancy/early retirement in 1997 after 23 years.

We Pastored the Assemblies of God Church in Kendal for eight years until moving, in 1986, to our present home in Backbarrow, near Newby Bridge, at the southern end of Windermere. 1997 on, Stella and I felt called to mission in West Africa - mostly Ghana but spent time in The Gambia; Bible College lecturing; preaching and teaching in many churches; humanitarian projects especially taking containers of medical equipment to Ghana and The Gambia; Built a school - Zoë European Academy - in rural outskirts of Accra; ten years on and 350 children on the roll, we still support the project. Holiday ministry includes more than 40 overseas trips with groups to Israel; Greece and several Islands; Turkey; Cyprus; Malta; Madeira; Tuscany; The Alps(French, German, Austrian and Italian), plus Provence - and, of course - The English Lake District.

Two sons live in nearby Ulverston (birthplace of Stan Laurel, as in Laurel and Hardy!); one is a banker whilst the younger pastors Emmanuel Christian Centre, our home church. We have six grandchildren.

I am archivist for the local History Society and we enjoy travelling the UK in our motorhome, which we find particularly useful for fulfilling distant/travelling speaking engagements. As well as preaching, Bob has an armoury of illustrated talks on Lake District, literary and conservation topics and acts as Guide for touring/walking groups. Lecturing fees etc go towards supporting our missions.

Wesley's great revelation hymns have long been particularly special, as have Fanny Crosby's heartfelt renditions. A favourite song, though, of recent years is "Faithful One, so unchanging...". The Lord has been so open-handed towards me and my family - great grandparents and on down succeeding generations. However, Stuart Townend's "In Christ Alone" and How deep The Father's Love..." stir me to the core.

When we were called to West Africa, we received a prophetic word from NIV Isaiah 58 vv 6-12. Especially, v.11 - "The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame." He has fulfilled that promise incredibly and absolutely... We thank God for all of His Provision to us.

Alistair McKitterick

Profile to follow shortly.

Michael & Jenny McMurtary

Michael was born in London and Jenny in Kent, but they moved to Surrey when they married in 1974. Michael studied Music at Trinity College of Music and Jenny read Biblical History and Literature at Sheffield University. Both trained as teachers and pursued MA courses in their specialist subjects. They gained successful teaching experience in schools before joining the staff of Gipsy Hill College (later to become Kingston University) where they both became Senior Lecturers. Michael came into full-time Christian ministry in 1985 and Jenny continued at Kingston University, becoming Head of Religious Education in the School of Education until she retired in 2006. Michael's ministry experience has been varied and ecumenical in scope, sharing in the pastoral oversight of a group of four United Reformed Churches in Guildford, Director of Worship at St. Andrew's Chorleywood and as a conference speaker, worship leader and Bible teacher in England and abroad. He is currently working as a lay pastor in a parish in Woking. Jenny and Michael are former members of the Guildford Arts in Worship Group, which presented programmes throughout the south of England and on BBC.

Eric & Carolyn Moore

Eric and Carolyn are members of Appledore Baptist Church in North Devon. Eric is a lay preacher, housegroup leader and worship leader. Carolyn is a deacon, keyboard player and also leads worship. Eric has lived in North Devon all his life while Carolyn was born in Bromley, Kent.

During a holiday in Appledore in 1970 she met Eric and in 1971 they were married and she moved to North Devon. For many years they were ministry leaders for MasterSun and their two sons (on their 'gap' years) worked in Corfu and Halkidiki for MasterSun before taking up careers in nursing, following in their father's footsteps. They have now both married physiotherapists and have nearly 4 children!

Eric and Carolyn are both retired, Eric having been a Charge Nurse in the local hospital and Carolyn having worked for Social Services in Bideford.

They enjoy gardening, walking, caravanning and looking after the grandchildren who live in South Devon and Somerset. I guess the favourite Bible verse must be Romans 8 v 28 - this being the verse inscribed on their wedding rings!

Nathan Morgan Locke

Nate and his wife Cat live in central London with their son James. Nate works for both the All Souls Clubhouse and Christianity Explored. His 'work' is mainly hanging around with teenagers and telling them about Jesus, though he is occasionally allowed to talk to adults! As Youth Evangelist with Christianity Explored, he is involved with developing resources and itinerant speaking engagements. He wrote and presented Soul, a seven part DVD series based on Mark's gospel.

Nate enjoys watching and playing sport, though he has not been skiing since he was 12!

Tom Murray

Tom Murray grew up just outside Oxford and began his links with Richmond on their gap year scheme. He has subsequently worked in a number of resorts both summer and winter, in Turkey, Greece and France. Tom has worked as sailing and windsurf instructor up to Sailing Centre Manager in the summer and as Children’s Worker, Ski Guide and Ski Technician in the winter.

Tom graduated from Exeter University with a degree in Sport Science, before working as the Student Union President for sport for a year. Tom then became a student pastor at an independent church in Exeter called Belmont Chapel, while there he heading up student ministry and the churches intern program. Following his time with Belmont chapel, he moved to the University and Colleges Christian Fellowship or UCCF where he is responsible for student evangelism in Exeter.

Tom is passionate about sharing the good news of Christ and loves working as an evangelist. In his spare time he is sports mad, playing all sports, but particularly loves football, skiing, sailing, windsurfing, cricket and rugby! He occasionally dabbles in cooking and dancing.

Andy & Fiona Perry

Andy Perry grew up in a Christian home and having made a commitment as a child his own personal faith began to grow in his teens. He spent time in Uganda during his gap year, and after university he taught at Winchester for three years before training for ordination at Trinity College, Bristol. Andy holds a B.A. and M.A. in theology and served as a curate in Bath. In 1995 he became Vicar of St Mary’s Longfleet, Poole and has been humbled and excited to see the church grow from 85 to about 700-800.

Andy is married to Fiona, a nurse practitioner and they have three grown up children Ben (24), Will (22) and Olivia (19). Andy and Fi are on the Leadership Team for the New Wine (CSW) conference week. Andy enjoys the outdoors, watching rugby, skiing, golf and reading especially biographies and on leadership.

Tom Price

Tom is an Academic Tutor at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, Associate speaker of the RZIM Zacharias Trust, and an independent itinerant evangelist/apologist. He is involved in pastoral care as well as teaching at the OCCA. Tom has a degree in Philosophy which led to his Christian conversion and also holds an MA in Christian Apologetics. Before studying for his Masters, Tom worked for the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) as the founding editor of their apologetics website bethinking.org.

He is married to Caroline and they live in Oxford where they attend a lively city centre church. Caroline studied astrophysics, and loves music, 'chick flicks' and Thai food. She also works as a Business Analyst at British Telecom.

Currently, as well as his work with the OCCA, Tom is a Damaris team member - an educational charity that seeks to help people across the world explore spiritual and moral issues underlying their contemporary culture. Both Caroline and Tom enjoy spending time with those who are asking difficult questions about God, philosophy, life, love, and work. Some of their favourite bible passages are those passages which give us glimpses of Jesus' character as he is moved with compassion to help people (John 9; Matt 9; Mark 11:46-52), or those incredible encounters when he asks a question - letting everyone see the key issue much more clearly (Mark 11:18; Luke 10:25-37; Genesis 3:9). Far from being irrelevant, out of date or boring, Jesus' character, his questions and then his astonishing answers are the most compelling, life changing things they have ever heard. As Ravi Zacharias says, 'Jesus did not come to make bad people good, but dead people alive.'

Matt Rich

Profile to follow shortly.

Doug & Fiona Russell

Fiona and Doug live in the west side of Edinburgh within easy reach of the city centre and countryside. Doug works as a design engineer and Fiona divides her work life between project management for the NHS and oil painting. They enjoy friendships, travel, skiing, cycling, good food, art, photography and music. They have both been Christians since their teenage years and their faith shapes their lives.

Doug has been involved in worship at church for many years and also, more recently, speaking at the annual Edinburgh Festival outreach café event. They have also led homegroups and assisted on Christianity Explored and Beta courses. They attend St Paul’s and St George’s church in Edinburgh where Fiona has recently joined the hospitality team, inspired by her love of cooking.

Doug has been involved with Christian holidays over the past twenty years, with experience in the roles of ski instructing, leading and more recently speaking on winter trips. Destinations have included Switzerland, Austria and Italy during the winter along with leading trips in Spain, Italy, Corsica and Turkey during the summer.

Before moving to Edinburgh, Fiona worked for many years in full-time Christian ministry, including radio broadcasting, preparing young people for short-term overseas missions with Oasis Trust, and co-ordinating relief aid to Serbia and Bosnia during the 1990’s. She has also led a number of summer and winter Christian holidays to Europe.

Des Scott

Des Scott was born and grew up in Belfast. He works for Church Army, a large Anglican home mission agency as Director of Strategy and Development and a member of the leadership team. His ministry with Church Army has included youth work, church planting and leading a large homelessness project in London. Des now lives and works in Sheffield.

Des loves the gospels because of their stories of ordinary people’s encounters with Jesus and how that transformed their lives! He has been involved with Richmond for the last four years as a ministry leader on both summer and winter holidays.

Anand & Helen Selvajaran

Profile to follow shortly.

Ben & Karen Shaw

Ben was born in Vancouver, Canada but soon moved to Sydney, Australia. In his mid-teens a enterprising school teacher invited the whole class home for scones and Bible study! Ben and a number of his good friends became Christians and together they formed a rock band in which they played full-time for over 5 years. Ben then studied at Moore Theological College, where he developed a keen interest in early Judeo-Christian history. Ben now works at Emmanuel Church, Wimbledon. His Bible overview course, "The Bible in 3 hours", has been used extensively in different parts of the world and is currently available in book form (co-written with Peter Downey) under the title "Everything you want to know about the Bible".

His latest book, "Everything you want to know about Jesus" came out in August 2007. Ben is married to Karen and they have a dog called "Bear". Ben still plays competitive cricket and football but enjoys just about any sport.

Mark Simmons

Mark hails from Oldham in Lancashire and is an avid supporter of Manchester United! (Well nobody’s perfect!)

At the tender age of thirteen he made a personal commitment to Christ encouraged and helped by his parents and his local evangelical church. With his ability as a guitarist growing he joined his first Christian folk group in his mid teens. After leaving school at sixteen he began working in the family business of Electrical Contracting where he remained for 9 years. Then in 1982 he seized the opportunity to engage in some full-time Christian work joining the Saltmine Trust where he was able to develop gifts in evangelism and music. Following 14 years in itinerant ministry he moved down to London to begin training for Baptist Ministry at Spurgeon’s College. Four years later he came out with a theology degree and a raging migraine! He was inducted into the Baptist ministry on 14 October 2000 where he became the Pastor of Selly Park Baptist Church in South Birmingham. He has continued to minister there up to this present time.

Mark has a wealth of experience as a speaker, evangelist, worship leader, musician and pastor with more than 20 years involvement on the Christian holidays’ scene. He is single, but has 7 nieces 1 nephew and 1 great nephew (of which he is very proud)! His favourite hymn is “Great is Thy faithfulness” and his best loved bible passage is; Romans 8:28-39 - “we are more than conquerors” He reckons that the most interesting fact about him is that “his Goddaughter’s brother’s Godfather’s wife is Princess Anne! (Work that one out!)

Alex & Trish Slater

Trish and Alex have just retired and moved from the fishing village of Kilkeel, in the Kingdom of Mourne at the foot of the Mourne Mountains, to Derbyshire, to be nearer the family. Alex was born and grew up in Peterhead in the north of Scotland and met Trish when she was holidaying in Scotland, from her home in Croydon. They saw each other only five times before they got married! They have two daughters and five grandchildren.

They worked for the Fishermen's Mission for 45 years and have served in various ports around the British Isles and have also worked at the Lighthouse Seaman's Centre in the Falkland Islands. They have dealt with many tragedies, where lives have been lost at sea, and continued caring for and supporting these families for as long as help was required. For this work, Alex was recently awarded the MBE in the Queen's New Year' Honours list.

Alex was brought up in the Exclusive Brethren, and has quite a story to tell. Trish was sent to the local Sunday School, with other kids from her street, and trusted Christ as her Saviour at 13 years of age.

Alex has been involved with the Northern Ireland Hospital Chaplaincy team and hopes to become involved in Chaplaincy work in their new area. In his spare time enjoys photography and art. Trish has been involved in various Ladies Ministries and also organised the local fishermen's wives, as a branch of AKTEA, the European Women in Fisheries Organisation, which involves conferences around Europe, which she hopes to continue. For relaxation she enjoys swimming, crafts and art.

For both Trish and Alex, this is s time of change as they settle into a new area and seek God's will for their lives.

Mike Stringer

Profile to follow shortly.

Gordon & Marion Stroud

Gordon is a retired dentist, and throughout the last 40 plus years he has been involved in Christian leadership. He led the church Youth Group for over eight years, which caused Marion, to compensate for his absence and the lack of a TV, by starting to write children’s novels. A Jack of all trades, in the last 30 years he has also been a Gideon, a local Preacher, a Worship Leader, and, together with Marion, has led several small groups. The church in which they’ve worshipped for more than 30 years was planted by 12 married couples and has always had a good balance of men and women, but they both feel strongly about the lack of men in many other churches, and Gordon is currently part of the team that organises the men’s breakfasts at their church.

Marion trained originally as a physiotherapist but ‘retired’ when baby number one was born in order to fulfil two ambitions at once – to become a mother and a writer! She has since written 23 books,mostly non-fiction, many articles and bible reading notes for Crusade for World Revival’s Inspiring Women. A founder member of the Assn. of Christian Writers she is also a Cross cultural trainer for Media Associates, an organisation that focuses on training writers, publishers and editors so that they can produce culturally relevant Christian literature in the spiritually hard places of the world. This teaching role has taken her to Russia, Bulgaria, Trinidad, Africa and the Philippines among other places. Marion and Gordon have five children and 15 grandchildren, ranging in age from 17 down to a few months.

Marion is a recently retired magistrate and Gordon chairs the Trustees of Christian Family Care – a Bedfordshire charity providing family centres and, until recently, a Woman’s Refuge. For relaxation Gordon watches cricket and cheers Wolves on to victory – not always successfully – and reads history books. Marion enjoys other people’s books and they both love to travel and keep up with their family – which sometimes feels like a full time task!

Trevor & Jan Summerlin

Trevor lives in the Rhondda Valley with his wife Jan. They have 3 children and 4 grandchildren. Trevor is a professional coach, trainer and psychotherapist. He works from a Christian prospective with churches, companies and individuals, longing for men and women, young and old to be salt and light in today's world. He teaches counselling courses in colleges across South Wales and conducts seminars and workshops on a range of topics from strategic planning to dealing with stress. His real passion is leadership training built on the foundation of Biblical principles. Previous roles have included youth worker, ski coach and Baptist minister. Trevor's personal mission statement is "To serve God as a catalyst for change". For the past couple of years Trevor and Jan have been worshipping at a local chuch in the village of Clydach Vale (in the Rhondda valley). The Church is called "Passion 4" (P4 for short), it is a very young lively fellowship and we are part of the Leadership Team there. Trevor loves music but was once arrested for singing (even though perfectly sober!).

His favourite book of the Bible is Jonah where we see the amazingly unchangeable nature of God's love and how He still chooses to use us in spite of our weaknesses and selfishness. A favourite hymn of Trevor's is "Oh Happy Day". He has chosen to have this at most of the significant services in his life and plans to have it at his funeral!

Will & Lucinda Van der Hart

Will is the Vicar of St Peter's Church in West Harrow, London. It is a rapidly growing, family-friendly, charismatic Anglican Church. St Peter's incorporates an NHS Christian Medical Practice of which Will is chaplain. He is the co-founder of Mind and Soul, a charity exploring Christianity and emotional health. Will was previously the Associate Vicar of St Mary's, Bryanston Square, London.

Lucinda is a journalist. She regularly writes for Christianity and Woman Alive magazines. She and Will co-authored The Pregnancy Book: Spiritual and emotional survival for first-time parents and her latest book is Soul Food for Mums.

Will and Lucinda are parents to two toddlers. They are fanatical skiiers and can't wait to hit the slopes after a few years off to have babies.

Simon Virgo

Profile to follow shortly.

Nic & Denise Willis

From a conservative evangelical background and with forty years bible teaching and preaching experience throughout the UK and overseas, Nic Willis has a deep knowledge of the Word of God and a lively and entertaining way of presenting it.

As founder of Bible Alive, he has a vision to see relevant and exciting Bible teaching back at the heart of our church life. His irrepressible enthusiasm for God's Word is both infectious and challenging.

Besides running a business (fortunately it runs itself now) and developing the Bible Alive ministry, he is also on the leadership team of Tarporley Baptist Church.

And, just in case they get bored, they go out regularly to Africa with the Mission Direct Team, and also lead the occasional Holy Land tour together.

Nic has been married to Denise for more years than they care to remember and they are still a pair of old romantics. Nic, (of Everly Brothers tribute band fame!), recently wrote and recorded an album of songs for Denise, celebrating their life together. Over the top, or what!

With so much going on they have little time for hobbies but they do enjoy getting away in the caravan to be in the countryside amongst God's glorious handiwork.

Favourite part of the Bible? Too difficult to answer because they love it all, but a verse that keeps them focused is Psalm 31:15 "My times are in Your hands". It's good to remember that in the busy-ness of our lives Gods plans for us are always the best.

Richmond - Quality Christian Holidays

Tel: 020 3004 2661

Pastor Profiles M-Z

Phil & Sandra Marsden

Bob & Stella Matthews

Alistair McKitterick

Michael & Jenny McMurtary

Eric & Carolyn Moore

Nathan Morgan Locke

Tom Murray

Andy & Fiona Perry

Tom Price

Matt Rich

Doug & Fiona Russell

Des Scott

Anand & Helen Selvajaran

Ben & Karen Shaw

Mark Simmons

Alex & Trish Slater

Mike Stringer

Gordon & Marion Stroud

Trevor & Jan Summerlin

Will & Lucinda Van der Hart

Simon Virgo

Nic & Denise Willis